Canucks and Beyond

Entries with the tag: wjc

The last couple games of Canuck hockey (Canada’s Canucks, not those belonging to Vancouver) have been gems, which anyone with a pulse and a functional television can certainly tell you. Team Canada’s World Junior Championship wins over the USA and then Russia were rife with emotion, edge-of-your-seat action and ecstatic highs and lows for both sides. Great hockey for all… and stupifyingly-awesome hockey if you’re a fan of the Canadian team in particular.

And thank goodness for that, because Canada’s emotional, all-heart performances are about the only thing that rescued me from cheering for other teams this year, simply to shut up the drone of hockey-arrogance that eminates from this country at times.

This is the sort of thing that’s liable to get one of my favorite coaches in hot water.

“A lot of players are falling on the ice on purpose. That means our team looks more like a soccer team. This style of play is often practised in Quebec, where players fall down easily and good body checks are often penalized.”

The National Post story headlines itself with “Quinn offends Quebec by saying its hockey players are divers.” And while we can debate ad nauseum whether the Quebec junior hockey system encourages diving—and frankly, I’m more inclined to run with Quinn’s other cut about soccer—here’s the first thing that should be kept in mind about Quinn’s words: they were stated originally in English, then translated into French, then translated back into English.

That’s a whole lot of mutilation for a quote that I don’t think is all that incendiary to begin with.

Pat Quinn might not be front and center of the NHL these days, but he’s certainly stayed in the public spotlight.

While the pundits like to speculate endlessly about his suitability for various league coaching positions as they become available, Quinn himself stays plenty busy without worrying too much about the NHL.